MIFF Blogathon: Day 12 (Falling for Wasted Tatsumi)

This blogathon is an initiative of MIFF for their 60th anniversary year. I am one of six bloggers given the mission of seeing 60 films in 17 days and writing, reporting, reviewing and wrangling my way through the tiredness and hunger to bring the festival experience to your computer.

Falling for Sahara
Dir. Khoa Do
Running Time: 81mins

Turns out there really is a first time for everything! Finally a Khoa Do film I actually like! I never saw last year's Mother Fish, but The Finished People is the worst kind of let's-use-non-actors-and-people-won't-notice-the-bad-filmmaking filmmaking and the less said about Footy Legends, perhaps the worst Australian film I have ever seen, the better. With Falling For Sahara he has assembled a charming cast of African teenagers to tell his rather sweet tale of refugees experiencing first love.

Following three boys who live in the housing flats of Flemington (the ones along the Upfield line for those who do or who have lived on that particular train line like myself) who all have eyes for a girl who moves in, albeit briefly, and whose stunning beauty has seen her scheduled to be shipped back to Ethiopia for an arranged marriage. Most of the characters here are thoughtfully written and even if the acting is a bit hit and miss - the young debut actress that plays Sahara, Mekdes Getachew, lights up the screen - the film is largely more successful than Do's previous films due to its combination of the sweet without the overt saccharine.


Despite an occasionally negative look at the life that refugees find themselves in, this actually gives it a unique place in Australian films. Never grungy and depressing in its representation of refugee life, it's ultimately hopeful and smile-inducing finale make Falling for Sahara a welcome addition to Do's career. Also of note to local AFL fans is that the film was partially funded by the Essendon Football Club and one of their players, the quite good looking Andrew Welsh has a small role as a footy coach. B+

Natural Selection
Dir. Robbie Pickering
Running Time: 90mins

One of the finest surprises of the festival by far is this delightfully funny film from debut writer/director Robbie Pickering. Rather than trading in tired quirk like so many American indie comedies, Natural Selection instead fills its thankfully short (perfect comedy runtime of 90 minutes!) with genuine jokes and, at key moments, sweet pathos. I'm not ashamed to say that I actually shed a few tears at the end of this film as the wonderful Rachael Harris - an actress that has mostly worked on TV and improv, but who is probably known by most as from The Hangover and Diary of a Wimpy Kid - realises her truest needs.

Natural Selection takes a great many potshots at religion, class and mismatched romantic comedies, but never feels like it's allowing a mean-spirited voice from overtaking the material. Harris is particularly wonderful in one of my favourite performances of the festival, revealing layers to this sad, lonely woman. Matt O'Leary, too, is good for many laughs as the son Harris' Linda never knew her husband had fathered. Natural Selection won seven awards at this year's SXSW festival and I can see why. I can only hope that it is allowed to venture outside of the arthouse that it's thorny subject matter suggests it could be relegated to. A-

Wasted Youth
Dir. Argyris Papadimitropoulos & Jan Vogel
Running Time: 99mins

There came a moment in the late stages of Greek drama Wasted Youth when yet another scene began of its dull lead characters boozing and skateboarding where I quite visibly and audibly sighed. My viewing partner turned, chuckled, and nodded in agreement. Earlier in the film he had awoke from his act one slumber, looked over at me and noticed that I, too, had drifted off into the land of forty winks. For you see Wasted Youth is the worst film of the festival so far. An absolute misfire in every way, enlived only by some interesting visual and music choices. Wasted Youth is a big fat dud.

Vogel and Papadimitropoulos' film follows two storylines that, as dictated by the laws of cliched screenwriting, must intersect by film's end. One storyline follows a husband and father who works night shift in his job as a police officer on the streets of a rowdy Greek town. The second storyline follows a group of teenagers as they traverse the city from one scintillating encounter to another. Many of these adventures involve girls, drinking, skating or sweating in the balmy Greek sun.


That the filmmakers thought that audiences really needed to be told that the youths of today (or, ya know, any day) like to rebel and drink and have sex and all sorts of dangerous stuff is not the biggest worry of Wasted Youth. No, the biggest problem is that there is no electricity to the film, no energy. It just flaps about from one tiresome scene to another, before finally limping to a ridiculous - and, might I say, offensive to the principals of storytelling - ending of indulgent "importance". Seriously? Another scene of these kids skating? Enough already! D-

Tatsumi
Dir. Eric Khoo
Running Time: 98mins

An animated biopic of a renowned manga artist, Tatsumi is Eric Khoo's ode to Yoshihiro Tatsumi who excelled in the art of gekiga manga. Despite it's stunningly gorgeous animation of various styles and forms, Tatsumi is an omnibus film of sorts that is diluted with each subsequent tale. It took me a while to actually figure out what on Earth was going on, but I know for certain that it opens with a wonderfully done World War II sequence that is evocative in its pained drawings (did the animation team take their cues from Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2 for the Hiroshima bomb victims?). Unfortunately, later segments range from lovely to the dull to the downright uncomfortable.

Perhaps those "in the know" of manga and specifically Yoshihiro Tatsumi, but I suspect many others will find it as difficult to crack open as I did. C

MIFF TALES
I had a discussion this evening after Wasted Youth about the nature of applauding films. MIFF audiences are good at clapping for films, even if somebody involved in the creative process isn't there. They like feeling like the screening means something and so applauding their approval is, I guess, an extension of that. But as we discussed the curious nature of anybody applauding that woeful film we'd just seen, we recalled that nobody clapped after the extraordinary Martha Marcy May Marlene. Were people just too numbed by the experience to clap? I was all set to clap, but then nobody else did so I chose to keep my hands apart (wait, what?)

Speaking of creative people being in the house for their film, two of the cast from Falling for Sahara gave a Q&A afterwards and, curiously, it was the debut actress Mekdes Getachew that came off most natural of all. She could do quite well for herself in this business if she keeps that natural charm.

MIFF Blogathon: Day 11 (Futuristic NEDs)

This blogathon is an initiative of MIFF for their 60th anniversary year. I am one of six bloggers given the mission of seeing 60 films in 17 days and writing, reporting, reviewing and wrangling my way through the tiredness and hunger to bring the festival experience to your computer.

The Future
Dir. Miranda July
Running Time: 91mins

YouTube. Miranda July loves it. She probably also loves LOLcats. These are suspicions I had after after watching The Future, her first film since Me & You & Everyone We Know in 2005. The Future feels more like the work of a director who has spent too much time watching YouTube videos of animals playing pianos and gifs of cute cats with injuries saying "can i c doctor clooney now plz" than of an artist who so delicately navigated the sad, vaguely connected lives of the characters in Everyone We Know six years prior. And it's a shame, really.

July, again working as writer-director-actor, has some pertinent things to say regarding the life of creative types and artists who have entered that troublesome era of life where it's near impossible to start up a new career out of fear that they'll never get anywhere. Alas, coming from someone such as July who has the ability to take six years between films and who makes YouTube videos and gets hailed as genius feels curiously out of touch. Unfortunately, the first half of The Future is tricky to peruse as her lead characters, including Hamish Linklater as her boyfriend of four years Jason, go about their dull, yet vaguely hipsterish lives do frustrating things like quit their jobs and yet never once mention that they have rent to pay.


Things become considerably more in tune with human emotions in the more brittle second half, as Jason's ability to stop time (yes) brings about delicate feelings of hurt and sadness, brought on by Sophie's cruelty. The parallel stories of the film's latter half are melancholic and at times even sweet, ending with a hopefulness that no matter the age or lifestyle there's always something out there that will allow you to connect to another human soul. If that other human soul just happens to have a matching curly mop haircut and wears beautiful vintage clothing despite working lousy jobs then so be it.

Unfortunately, July's bizarre dalliances with irksome preciousness are the film's major undoing. Most predominant of all is the utterly bizarre and crazy idea of having the film narrated at intervals by an injured cat that Jason and Sophie plan to adopt. As voiced by July herself it has the distinct waft of LOLcats: The Movie and does a major disservice to the overriding themes of the film. It's a shame because it actually made me want to revisit her prior film to find out if I actually like it as much I remember or if six years of American indie quirk genre titles has diminished its power. The Future is not somewhere I care to revisit any time soon. C

NEDs
Dir. Peter Mullan
Running Time: 124mins

A rough and tumble, yet deliciously energetic take on the well worn tale of youths gone wild, Neds - it's a local Scottish term for Non-Educated Delinquents - is propulsive and altogether fabulous filmmaking. Directed by part time director and full time actor (he appears on screen here as a drunken father as well as another MIFF 2011 title Tyrannosaur) Peter Mullan, his first time behind the camera since the sublime The Magdalene Sisters in 2002, Neds is - much like that film - a look at how abusive elders, those kids and teenagers are supposed to look to for guidance, can turn people onto the wrong path. That the teachers of young John McGill assume he's a violent thug like his older brother is somewhat partly to blame for his off the track veering several years later once he falls into the wrong crowd. The wrong crowd being the kind who carry knives and spike their own drinks whilst goading fellow neighbourhood gangs into fights.

As played with fierce focus of Conor McCarron in the majority of the film, John is both dizzying in his teenhood cockiness and bravura with slivers of bubbling nerviness. The scene where he and his father share rowdy glances at one another from opposite ends of the stairs is a determined slice of acting and the sight of John parading around his lower-class neighbourhood with butcher knives strapped to his hands is one I won't soon forget. McCarron gives the best performance I've yet seen at this festival, and that it's by a novice on his first film is even more impressive.


Mullan's directorial choices are, at times, messy and desperate to replicate Shane Meadows' even more magnetic masterpiece This is England, but when he's not simply imitating he's coming up with vibrant set-pieces and vividly imagined character exchanges. While a running time in excess of two hours is pushing it, especially when the thick Scottish dialogue is in desperate need of subtitles, Neds is a compelling and tribal look at a bleak country's violent thuggery. A-

MIFF TALES
While I am glad to report that this evening's screening of Neds did not feature a strobe light show for our effect during the final act like last night, but it did feature an annoying black shadow in the bottom part of the screen and poor focus. The Forum has quickly become this festival's disaster venue and I can't tell you how happy I am to not have to go there once during tomorrow's four film schedule.

Still, today was lovely for the fact that local writer and actor Lee Zachariah organised a wonderful tweet and greet for a large number of film writer folk who live in Melbourne (or who were visiting town). It was great being able to see some people who have been absent for the festival for a number of reasons and even those who have seemingly been around every corner of the festival. Being able to put faces to Twitter handles is always nice, especially when they're as pale-faced and protein-deficient as writers tend to be. Wait, I lie. There are actually some very attractive members of the writing community out there, but let's not perpetuate that idea because people will start to get the wrong idea about us and expect us to be pretty. That's something none of us want nor need.

MIFF Blogathon: Day 10 (The Turin Tales)

This blogathon is an initiative of MIFF for their 60th anniversary year. I am one of six bloggers given the mission of seeing 60 films in 17 days and writing, reporting, reviewing and wrangling my way through the tiredness and hunger to bring the festival experience to your computer.

Tales of the Night
Dir. Michel Ocelot
Running Time: 84mins

After seeing Michael Ocelot's bright, candy-coloured 3D animation Tales of the Night [Les contes de la nuit] I described it as like being a collection of those 5 minute filler cartoons on ABC1 strung together. Turns out that's exactly what it is! As three people put on plays in their, I'm assuming, magic playhouse during the depths of the night, they invent fantasy worlds with princes and queens who fall in love in front of sets of yellows, greens, reds and blues. It's visually dazzling, but ultimately rather nothing.

The use of 3D is quaint and only in one or two of the stories does it actually serve any use to the story. The animation is quite lovely and found myself getting quite touched by the imagery of the Tibetan story as sun rises over the Himalayan mountain tops. The characters, all animated in silhouettes with slightly bulging 3D eyes, are odd creations, but there are moments of humour to distract and the backdrops are lovely to look at. I dunno, it felt inconsequential in the end. C+

The Turin Horse
Dir. Béla Tarr
Running Time: 146mins

The first potato arrives 20 minutes into Béla Tarr's latest - and apparently last - film. The potato motif continues throughout The Turin Horse [A torinói ló], as does everything else that Tarr decides to show us of the repetitive lives of two Hungarian farmers. We watch multiple times as they awake, put on their masses of clothes, fetch water from the well, decide whether or not to leave their windswept farm or not, boil potatoes, eat potatoes, sit at window, undress, go to bed. This father and daughter live the most humble of existences and this is clearly evidenced by the weathered faces they carry around. Their faces are like bust statues, they're so unmoving and stoney.

As a storm rages around them they must learn to cope with being cooped up inside. He grumbles a lot. It's all very hypnotic and the old cliche line "it's good if you're into that sorta thing" applies here a lot. I was surprised to find that after the disastrous The Man from London that I was, in fact, "into that sorta thing", as I got quite invested in their travails. The Turin Horse's idea of a thrilling dramatic twist is the arrival of gypsies to the land. It's a welcome surprise, dramatically, as well as a sign of Tarr's deeply wicked sense of humour.

The Turin Horse supposes to follow the final days of the horse featured in the tale of Friedrich Nietzsche's eventual insanity. The horse, beautiful creature that it is, does have a pained, powerful screen presence as its bulky frame with spotted fur takes up the majority of the screen. Erika Bók, the actress who plays the daughter, is also a fascinating study. Her face fraught with emotion - or, the lack there of as it sometimes feels like due to her muted actions.


The real star of the film, however, is Fred Kelemen's sublime cinematography. Sitting mostly still for long uncut shots for the majority of the film, Kelemen and Tarr continue to find new spots to place the camera and we eventually learn every nook and cranny of this homely residence. There's always something happening on screen if you allow your eyes to navigate; Kelemen and Tarr reward investigative viewers. Occasionally the camera drifts about the place or flows, following a character out to the well or to the barn, and it moves like magic. Picking focus on something unexpected and following it to its end place. It's a wonderful technical exercise that is perhaps only bettered by the claustrophobic sound design. The wails of the wind are a constant on the soundtrack and there's an oppressive feel to them, too, that almost made me feel like I was there. It attacks from all sides and its a marvel.

Of course, with a film such as this one is bound to find curious stuff to pick at. Like, how about why they don't eat all of the potato? They pick at it and then discard most of it! You spend all this time boiling potatoes without a lid on and then you eat a quarter of it? Seems like such a waste! But observations like that feel needlessly silly by film's end, which - from what I saw of it (more on that a bit) - is a deeply melancholic and troubling conclusion. B+

MIFF TALES
So much drama!

A two film day became a three film day became a two film day. I decided to cancel on Bullhead on Saturday evening due to exhaustion, and picked up Tales of the Night on Sunday to make it up. Alas, my train was late/cancelled and so I missed the beginning of my evening session - Florent Tillon's Detroit Wild City [Detroit, ville sauvage] - and was subsequently locked out. They'd given away my ticket to standby Miffsters. Dissapointing, but understandable I suppose.

However, the biggest MIFF tale of all came later in the evening at The Turin Horse. Much worse than the man a few seats down from me who appeared to be making a bad for himself to lie down on or the re-appearance of the scary wheezing death man for a very brief moment early on, last night's screening of The Turin Horse was fraught with unforgivable errors.

Firstly, the final reel was projected half off the screen for somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes. Apparently everyone in the projection booth at The Forum was asleep because nobody would fix it! Even more annoying was that nobody towards the front of the cinema would get up off their lazy butts to tell the staff. It was eventually fixed to a round of applause, but by that stage the dramatic alien reveal was ruined and the horse's big moment was destroyed.

Shamefully, that wasn't the worst incident of all! You see, once they'd finally fixed the projection the final 15 minutes of the film was beset with a series of house light errors. First The Forum's weird blue heroin lights turned on and then they started flashing like a gay disco. Various other lights began to strobe and it was like being in several sequence of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (with thankfully less plastic)! From there on various lights throughout the cinema would flicker, strobe, dim up and down, turn on and off and eventually even a big flood light was turned on to the screen making it even more impossible to view what was going on on screen. Streams of people were walking out - 30 had walked out by the 2hr mark and I'd hazard a guess and say the same number walked out during those final 20 minutes out of pure frustration with the issues - and others were hootin' and hollerin'. None of the staff seemed aware of what was going on, either, although I did see one poor volunteer running up and down the stairs several times.

To make matters worse, the lights finally stopped with their impromptu light show and turned off DURING THE CLOSING CREDITS! Yikes. And on top of that, when I asked an usher if we were getting an apology of some kind he chuckled and said to "ask a supervisor". The staff apparently were more interesting in setting up a booth outside to take people's names and numbers than actually fixing the problem at hand. Apparently anybody at the screening can call 9662 3722 for ticket exchanges. Still doesn't help anything when the 2 and a half hour film's final scenes were ruined. The Turin Horse is not a film you should just watch a couple of scenes of. It's a mood piece and to watch the final 30 minutes without the first 120 would be dissatisfying to say the least.

Lastly, there's an all too brief rundown of the festival's days 5-9 by me at Trespass Magazine wherein I discuss my highlights of the period.

MIFF Blogathon: Day 9 (The Forgiveness of a Pool Party in Ruhr)

This blogathon is an initiative of MIFF for their 60th anniversary year. I am one of six bloggers given the mission of seeing 60 films in 17 days and writing, reporting, reviewing and wrangling my way through the tiredness and hunger to bring the festival experience to your computer.

Ruhr
Dir. James Benning
Running Time: 120mins

A thoroughly fascinating piece of experimental film work from an apparently master of the genre James Benning, Ruhr is a curiously fascinating work of halves. One half of the mammoth-feeling runtime of 120 minutes is devoted to 10-minute segments of various elements of the Ruhr district in Germany; an underground car tunnel, Dusseldorf Airport, a muslim prayer service, and so forth. The second half is one single uninterrupted take - yes, 60 full minutes, of a coke factory chimney. It's intermittently captivating and frustrating, but a rewarding experience for sure.

Having walked out of the experimental shorts yesterday afternoon - albeit, apparently not very good ones from people more into that sort of thing - I wasn't sure how I would go with Ruhr, but I found myself being pleasantly surprised (if also a little sleepy at moments). Perhaps it's because Ruhr is feature length and so feels less like an actual film with an actual destination rather than the art museum installations that the shorts gave the aura of. Sure, at times it feels like director Benning recently purchased his first digital camera (this is his first digital film) and wanted a tax deductible trip to Germany, but if the result is this stimulating then I guess I am all for it.


Could the second half have been shorter? Probably, but the imagery of a vent tower against a slowly darkening sunset is mesmerising. As smoke occasionally billows out from the top and oozes out of pockets along the side, it creates an eye-opening experience. It's like a modern take on, and a far shorter version of, Andy Warhol's Empire experimental work. As a matter of fact, the whole piece reminded me of the sort of exciting art that I saw in New York City and the way I felt inspired and arrested. Ruhr was sweet justification after yesterday's experience with the shorts and has only improved in my mind afterwards. A-

Pool Party
Dir. Beth Aala
Running Time: 75mins

A refreshingly fun documentary from debut feature director Beth Aala, Pool Party examines the McCarren Pool in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The size of four Olympic swimming pools put together and closed in 1984, this massive - and I mean massive - location has, in recent years, become a summer concert hot spot as a company called Jelly have put on free music concerts for the ever-so-hip residents of Brooklyn and beyond. Featuring artists that these very people have helped launch such as Matt & Kim, The Liars, The Black Lips, The Hold Steady, The Ting Tings, To Le Tango, Deerhunter, The Breeders and, in a major coup, Sonic Youth.

Moreso than a look at the pool itself, however, Aala's film looks at the way Brooklyn as a whole has risen from its dilapidated beginnings to its current status as a vibrant, hipster (almost yuppie) centre and the gentrification that comes with it. As they say, first come the artists and then come the million dollar condos. Pool Party doesn't do all that much that is particularly illuminating, but for a New York City tragic like myself it was utterly divine to see all this activity and vibrant life mixed between the token vintage footage and photographs as well as the lovingly sun-bleached shots of the beautiful city. And especially on the heels of Ruhr and after the disappointing lack of music found within last night's The Black Power Mixtape 1968-1975, the great musical performances and pulsating beat were a sound for sore ears. B+

Toomelah
Dir. Ivan Sen
Running Time: 101mins

The first thing that hit me with Ivan Sen's follow-up to last year's best MIFF title Dreamland was, much like that dialogue free experimental alien work, the sound design. Sen layers a ticking clock over a dog's bark and then adds the hum of a refrigerator and the ding of a young boy opening and closing a cooking pot. Unfortunately, Toomelah - a recent graduate of Cannes' Un Certain Regard - is far too familiar to succeed beyond the individual scenes of greatness that occasionally spring forth.

Acted by non-professionals (although Dean Daley-Jones of Mad Bastards does pop up as a local drug peddling thug) results in a mixed bag of good and bad performances that audiences should come to expect. This story of a dying Aboriginal mission as seen through the eyes of a small child (Daniel Connors) is told using subtitles due to the thick, lingo-laden dialogue and features some wonderful comedy moments (one character is named "Tupac" for instance) littered amongst the rather heady material. Dialogue is laced with profanity and those squeamish about "the c-word" would be best to avoid. A wonderful score made up on jangly guitar riffs and downtrodden strings adds a touch of class to the proceedings, but an overly excessive run time make Toomelah a tough ride to take. C+

The Forgiveness of Blood

Dir. Joshua Marston
Running Time: 109mins

Those familiar with Joshua Marston's sublime debut feature, Maria Full of Grace, will probably come out of The Forgiveness of Blood with, like me, pangs of disappointing. While the film is a stinging indictment of barbaric traditions in this rural Albanian village, Blood lacks an energy and a verve that was evident throughout Maria. Who can forget that pulse-pounding scene where Maria (Catalina Sandino Moreno) swallows the cocaine-filled capsules? Nothing like that in The Forgiveness of Blood, which chooses mundane village life over anything resembling tension.

It's a hard film to discuss since it is so reserved about so much, but I liked the performances and the specific art direction (loved that half-constructed second level on the family home). The performances of Tristand Halilaj - an Albania Andrew Garfield of sorts with his tall, lanky frame and goofball good looks - and Sindi Lacej as his sister are of particular note. The latter, in particular, gets a wonderful final shot amidst the movie's perplexing climax. B-

MIFF TALES
I got my cupcake! The most important review of all: It was delicious. Thank you to the wonderful Suze for that!

After Toomelah this afternoon there was a Q&A with the film's producer David Joysey. Funnily enough the first question put to him by the MIFF director was about Dreamland. As I originally mused last year, nobody has purchased it and the version of it that I saw will, presumably, never see the light of day. Such a cruel shame for such a brilliant film. I can only hope that whatever version they're cutting it into at the moment (Jowsey was, shall we say, less than forthcoming when I asked him personally in the ACMI lobby) isn't too drastic, but can allow Dreamland to be seen some sort of audience.

Other than that weren't too many MIFF anecdotes from today's screenings. I certainly could have done without the patron rustling a packet of chips deep into the final scene of Ruhr, likewise to the woman sitting near me at The Forgiveness of Blood who exaggerated every reaction to the point of comedy. I did walk into a wall today though. At Ruhr, I sorta just lost my bearings and stumbled against the wall of Greater Union's cinema 4. That's what seeing 60 films at a festival whilst battling the flu is all about, I suppose!

Lastly, before the festival began I wrote a top posters of the fest piece for Trespass Magazine and it's now up! See what I consider the best posters of films showing at this year's MIFF and let me know if there are any I didn't consider long enough?

MIFF Blogathon: Day 8 (Top Floor Brother on the Sly)

This blogathon is an initiative of MIFF for their 60th anniversary year. I am one of six bloggers given the mission of seeing 60 films in 17 days and writing, reporting, reviewing and wrangling my way through the tiredness and hunger to bring the festival experience to your computer.

On the Sly
Dir. Olivier Ringer
Running Time: 77mins

"Cute, but slight" is a frequent criticism of films that play festivals. It could easily be said for Olivier Ringer's On the Sly [A pas de loup], a nicely made French drama about a girl who suspects she is invisible to her busy Parisian parents so, on a weekend trip to the country, she decides to become just that and vanishes before their very eyes. She then spends several days living in the forest behind the country home, fending for herself (she finds a berry - just one - and then eats worms), amasses several pets and takes care of a cluster of plant seeds.

Starring Wynona Ringer - I'm assuming the director's own daughter? - the film only ever shows the faces of those who can "see" her; a kindly old gent who offers her some seeds to plant and, later on, her father. The scenes set in her makeshift hut of sticks and fern leaves are quaint, but enjoyable, and the film certainly doesn't outstay its welcome, however, just like The Ugly Duckling yesterday, it feels quite long despite being less than 80 minutes. There's nothing overtly wrong with On the Sly, but it could have probably used a bit of fleshing out or a director with a few more tricks up their sleeve. B-

Top Floor Left Wing
Dir. Angelo Cianci
Running Time:

I feel like I would have enjoyed Angelo Cianci's debut feature Top Floor Left Wing [Dernier etage gauche gauche] if I had more rest behind me. From what I could gather from the film, however, it's a funny - if not as funny hah hah as the rest of the crowd seems to find it - film that is directed with vigour, features an energetic soundtrack and is acted with some real zest. Judging by the reaction it received post credits, and considering the similar storylines involving chaotic villains, Top Floor Left Wing is this year's Four Lions; last year's hilarious terrorist comedy from Chris Morris. B-

Experimental Shorts Program 1
Dir. Various
Running Time: 81mins

I attempted to make my way through the first program of experimental shorts, but - as I inevitably do with short films - I ended up frustrated, annoyed and left. I could handle the first of the four shorts, Nathaniel Dorsky's Pastourelle, even if it did kinda just remind me of 17 minutes of outtakes from ABC1's Gardening Australia, what with its out of focus close-ups of flowers and streams of sunlight. And with no soundtrack, either!


I decided to leave after the second short, Ben Russell's 10-minute Tryppes #7 (Badlands), which was, for the majority of its length, just a single shot of a woman as a bell rings every 60 seconds. These sort of films frequently lead me to query where they are going, but the answer is inevitably "nowhere" and I'm glad I left before the commencement of the 40-minute Slow Action, which was apparently dire and the title alone gave me the shivers!

Brother Number One
Dir. Annie Goldson
Running Time: 97mins

This New Zealand documentary follows famous sportsman Rob Hamill as he travels to Cambodia - with detours to Australia and his native New Zealand - to give a victim statement at a trial for an evil Khmer Rouge leader responsible for the death of his bother, Kerry. As any documentary about the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge would be - you'll know of what I speak if you've seen Oscar-winning The Killing Fields from 1984 - Brother Number One (and not Number One Brother as I've been erroneously calling it all day!) is affecting and will wring tears from many.

It's such a shame then that director Annie Goldson's film isn't more a visually dynamic film. It's a very straightforward film, with little done to take it to the next level whether that be visually, structurally or within the material. While, thankfully, the story at its core is important enough to not necessarily need it, it just makes it hard to really say the film itself deserves the score I give it as opposed to the potency of its subject. B

The Black Power Mix-Tape 1967-1975
Dir. Göran Olsson
Running Time: 100mins

It's funny the things that can swing one's opinion of a film. Goran Olsson's The Black Power Mix-Tape 1967-1975 is a fascinating, and frequently enraging exploration of the black civil rights movement through the eyes of previously unseen Swedish news footage from the era. The film is definitely put together well and the interviews - both on screen from the 1960s and '70s to the audio interviews with the likes of ?uestlove, Erykah Badu, Talib Kweli and so forth - are interesting and full of wonderful details that, for someone like me, are quite illuminating.

Unfortunately, for a film with the word "Mix-Tape" in the title, there is a distinct lack of music. In fact, apart from one Michael Jackson song at the very beginning and a recurring use of one track by The Roots that I can't recall the title of (it was a great song) there is no music whatsoever. Perhaps it was naive to think a movie with this title explored the rights movement through music? Perhaps. B

MIFF TALES
You know what I've discovered is a really good way to stop oneself from falling asleep during a movie? Sit at the back of the cinema and as you drift off your head will topple backwards and hit the wall! I did this tonight at the ever fancy Greater Union 5 and my head hit the wall with an almighty smack. The lady next to me even jumped. I had to apologise: "Sorry, I fell asleep and my head hit the wall." Only during MIFF could I say that and not be embarrassed. The amount of times I've dozed off during films so far this festival is embarrassing in itself! Tomorrow I have Ruhr, so I'm sure it'll be happening again.

Along with the sleepiness, I think I'm getting deep vein thrombosis in my legs and to top off that marvellous feeling my coughing fits are remaining hoarse and sore. Plus I feel like I've been wearing the same clothes over and over again (I have, at least, with my jeans, which are the most comfortable ones to wear whilst in public that still look like I'm not wearing "comfy jeans"). I think I'm gonna have to swing into Little Cupcakes tomorrow and cheer myself up! It's not like my resident cupcake cooking friend Suze is helping!

*waits for a basket of cupcakes all his own!*

No? Oh...

MIFF Blogathon: Day 7 (Winter's Ugly Furniture)

This blogathon is an initiative of MIFF for their 60th anniversary year. I am one of six bloggers given the mission of seeing 60 films in 17 days and writing, reporting, reviewing and wrangling my way through the tiredness and hunger to bring the festival experience to your computer.

The Ugly Duckling
Dir. Garri Bardin
Running Time: 75mins

This Russian adaptation of the famed "ugly duckling" tale is most certainly the only time in cinema history that we will ever be able to describe a movie as "Chicken Run meets Black Swan!" and have it be absolutely accurate. The Ugly Duckling [Gadkiy utyonok] is Garri Bardin's first feature after a career of short movies that spans 40 years. While at only 75 minutes and bare storytelling it's hard to really define it as a feature at all, but a feature we shall call it nevertheless. This adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson's short story is lovingly crafted and features several charming songs, but it's hard to deny the slight nature of its being and that

As featured in the "Next Generation" section of the festival, The Ugly Duckling is most definitely a film that would appeal to a younger audience. While I got quite a bit out of it, especially marvelling at the wonderfully expressive and detailed character creations, the fact that its made for kids with little consideration of adults was somewhat off-putting. I can't imagine anybody other than children finding the shrill singing voice of the ugly cygnet hatchling to be hilarious - and in a frustrating turn, we don't even get to hear the redemptive beautiful singing voice of the swan once he has transformed. Seems like a missed opportunity, especially in such a short movie.


In fact, the film's golden egg to speak in terms of adults viewers has surely come about purely by accident. Bardin has used Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake music as the basis for the original songs and the score routinely swells into the decadence of the musical pieces that were recently made pop culturally significant again due to Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan. The aesthetic is very 1980s TV Christmas movie - you know what I'm talking about if you grew up during the era - but that is another endearing quality that the film has in its plumage. The Ugly Ducking isn't particularly special, but curious parents could certainly do far worse (like, say, Cars 2!) B

Strangely, our print had both French and English subtitles on it. I've never seen this before! It was confusing at first.

Winter's Daughter
Dir. Johannes Schmid
Running Time: 92mins

It's about time I start using a thesaurus for words like "sweet" and "charming". The way I'm going, seemingly describing every second film as one or two of those adjectives, I will have well and truly burnt them out and they'll have as much meaning as "the Australian Liberal Party" or "Chris Brown: pop star". But, sometimes, they are the correct words to apply and in the case of Johannes Schmid's Winter's Daughter [Wintertochter], a wonderfully endearing tale of a two German women of different generations (who can tell where this one's going already, can't you?) driving through Poland to discover their lost and unknown families.

Nina Monka stars as 11-year-old Kattaka. She swims, is friends with the young boy next door and goes Christmas tree shopping with an elderly neighter, Ursula Werner's tough Lene. After being told by her mother (Katharina M Schubert) that the man she thought was her father (Maxim Mehmet) is not, but instead is a Russian trawler mechanic named Alexis, Kattaka and Lene travel to the Poland port town of Szczecin to meet him before segueing to the place Lene lived upon the breakout of WWII. It's hard to explain why Winter's Daughter was so good, but it really is just such a satisfying film that made me smile and feel a bit warm inside. The performances are uniformly excellent, especially Werner as well as Leon Seidel as a teenage boy who helps them on their way. The stark, wintery landscapes are wonderfully captured by Michael Bertl and the screenplay by Michaela Hinnenthal, Nora Lämmermann and Thomas Schmid is a restrained charmer. B+

True story: I actually wrote down "SEXY DAD!" in my notes. Add this Maxim Mehmet to the growing list of incredibly-sexy-i-hope-you-get-cast-in-staff-i-get-to-see-throughout-the-year MIFF actors.

Tiny Furniture
Dir. Lena Dunham
Running Time: 98mins

Could we have a new favourite of the 2011 film festival? Why yes, I think we do! Lena Dunham's extraordinary debut feature Tiny Furniture is a wonderful gem filled with hilarious insights into both twentysomething and adult life and a truly wicked outlook on all things "hipster". Many will take Tiny Furniture as being an actual hipster film - the "Mumblecore" movement of filmmaking does that to people - but I instead found Dunham's screenplay to be a vicious attack on the ideas of hipsters, as if pointing to the absurdity of it and cruelly jabbing it.

Following 23-year-old Aura (played by writer, director and - obviously - star Lena Dunahm) as a recently graduated, but emotionally and professionally questioning individual that I identified with greatly. As she moves back in with her mother and sister she finds it hard to identify what it is she wants and how to go about it. There are a lot of movies about this very topic, but it's the unique humour that Dunham brings to the material that stood out as well as the brittle deadpan delivery of she and her cast. My favourite bit was the line about watching reruns of Seinfeld. I watch reruns of Seinfeld! The way it came out of nowhere, much like most of the laugh out loud moments, elevated it beyond simple gag.


Curious to note that Tiny Furniture shares a cinematographer with my other best-of-the-fest title, Martha Marcy May Marlene since they look so different and do such different things with their surroundings (MMMM mostly exteriors, TF mostly interiors.) I adored the way Jody Lee Lipes framed Dunham's film. Major notice must go to art direction by Jade Healy and Chris Trujillo who were in charge of making this interior world amongst the New York suburbs of Tribecca and DUMBO look as refreshing and comical as it does. Dunham - also appearing in The Innkeepers this fest - is a wonderfully refreshing presence in front of the camera. Almost like a female Seth Rogen. Laurie Simmons, on the other hand, isn't so much refreshing as just deliciously lived in and natural as Aura's artist mother.

Whether Tiny Furniture classifies itself as Mumblecore is beyond my care, but what I really focus on is the precise and dedicated wit that Dunham brought to it. Tiny Furniture is a special, hilarious and deeply personal film that I will remember long after the festival. A

Beauty and the Beast
Dir. Jean Cocteau
Running Time: 96mins

Another retrospective title for MIFF and it's a wonderful one that I had never seen before. Jean Coteau's 1946 adaptation of Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont's 1756 tale is a sumptuously designed affair with elaborate, dreamlike sets that incorporate gothic design and inventive visual effects. Meanwhile, costumes by Antonio Castillo, Marcel Escoffier and an uncredited Christian Bérard are almost as equally divine.

As classic as the film is - and despite having never seen it before, I can easily say that it is indeed a classic - it's hard not to laugh at some of the overt theatricality of it all. And as much as I'd love to admit I didn't laugh when Jean Marais's bête appeared for the first (and second and third...) time dressed like a cross between David Bowie in Labyrinth and Bjorn from ABBA wearing Liza Minelli's favourite black sequin top, however that would be lie. A big fat lie! A-

MIFF TALES
This evening at the Kino Palace for Beauty and the Beast there was very almost an "incident". In fact, I thought for sure I was witnessing a man dying right there in the cinema. You could've fooled me because it sounded like actual like vanishing from a man. As this elderly gentleman wheezed, coughed and splattered upon himself towards the start of the movie it, at first, sounded quite humourous ("now that's a cough!") but quickly sounded as if it was becoming very serious. Those sitting around him leaned in and offer assistance, one woman went running out of the cinema for assistance, one man yelled that he "take it outside!" (!!!) And then when one woman who had moved across the isle to help him asked "Someone's gone for help, are you okay?" and just like that he stopped coughing, said "Yes" in an inquisitive 'why wouldn't I be okay?' tone and then resumed watching the film never to be heard of again. Curious.

Curiouser still because just moments early I had returned from my own cinema exit rush as I absolutely had to leave for a spectacular coughing fit. It sounded like someone had removed a vital internal organ it was that long and loud. Yikes.

I also attended a screening today - Winter's Daughter - that was attended by what I think was several school classes. It was so refreshing to go to a film with teenagers in attendance and not wanna smack them with their phones and because of their endless chatter. They even laughed and applauded the opening commercial with Geoffrey Rush and clapped at film's end, too. I hope that amongst that large group of MIFF attendees there is at least one person as batty as we cinemagoers seeing 60 films a festival.

MIFF Blogathon: Day 6 (Tomboys and Film-Noir in Oregon)

This blogathon is an initiative of MIFF for their 60th anniversary year. I am one of six bloggers given the mission of seeing 60 films in 17 days and writing, reporting, reviewing and wrangling my way through the tiredness and hunger to bring the festival experience to your computer.

If you've missed other days just click the "MIFF" tag at the bottom of the entry. I also wrote a dispatch for Trespass Mag on the first four days of the fest.

The Third Man
Dir. Carol Reed
Running Time: 104mins

Carol Reed's masterpiece The Third Man was released two years after his exceptional Odd Man Out, and together the two make a rather stunning double. The chance to see The Third Man, the story of Harry Lime and his mysterious death in a road accident outside his Vienna apartment, on the big screen was far too good to pass up. Even more so when I knew it meant not necessarily having to watch the film with my critical brain on. Having already seen it and thought of it as one of the greatest films ever made, I was able to simply soak in the beautiful Italian locations (yes, even the sewers are beautiful!), the perfect Oscar-winning cinematography by Robert Krasker, the crackling chemistry between all four lead characters, the dazzling looks of Valli and revel in the excitement and thrills of the final 40 minutes, one of the greatest chase sequences ever put to celluloid.

Unlike Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy on day one of the festival, there is no need for me to request my dear readers hail The Third Man as a newly minted masterpiece as it has been hailed as one since the day it won the Palme d'Or in Cannes (or, as it was known in 1949, the "Grand Prize of the Festival"). I can only suggest you watch it (or watch it again) and agree with the masses. A

I Wish I Knew
Dir. Jia Zhangke
Running Time: 138mins

This peculiar film comes from the director of Still Life, which reminds to this one of the two or three greatest films I've ever seen at the Melbourne International Film Festival. Perhaps that's why I keep going to his films - perhaps? it is - but neither of the subsequent Zhang films have been, well, good. While this long, meandering testimonial documentary is certainly better than Useless, I Wish I Knew failed to grab me and resulted in a long series of walkouts. I was never offended or truly annoyed by the film to walk out sooner, but I did have to leave several minutes before the end due to another session. To be honest, I don't think I missed much.

The film follows an unnamed woman as she trudges about the city of Shanghai. As she does nothing of note, we are greeted to lovely footage of citizens of Shanghai going about their daily routine: mahjong, a young child running around looking for a fight to show off his "muscles", shopping for produce at a market. Throughout the movie are dozens or interviews with subjects ranging from the recognisable (Hsiao-hsien Hou for instance) to the not (I'm not sure if they were all supposed to be famous. were they?) as they recall memories about the city of Shanghai. Occasionally these interviews produced some wonderful stories, but others (like one man who talks about moving a sofa lounge? I admit to probably dozing off during that one!) are unfocused and uninteresting.


My favourite interview was Wang Tung/Wang Toon who directed the 1997 film Red Persimmon. The film is interlaced with film clips and locations sequences of Shanghai are gloriously lensed by Ke-Jia's frequent cinematographer Nelson Yu Lik-wai in his trademark colour palate of sea green and smoggy whites. The heavily synthesised score by Giong Lim is a highlight, but eventually becomes repetitious. Like I said, it's hardly offensive enough to my sensibilities, but there lacks any serious bite to really engage. C-

How to Die in Oregon
Dir. Peter Richardson
Running Time: 107mins

To be perfectly honest with you, I'm not sure I am quite ready, willing and able to discuss this documentary about dying with dignity. Peter Richardson's deeply moving How to Die in Oregan follows a few cases of people wanting to die with dignity after contracting debilitating terminal illness, as well the Washington state's proposition to legalise it like it is in Oregon. Richardson mainly follows one case, however, and that's the beautiful Cody Curtis, a mother and wife with liver cancer. After the movie I tweeted this, and it's entirely true:



It knocked me out.

I don't really want to use my blog here to get into a big theological discussion about whether dying with dignity is a basic human right or not (I think it is, ahem), but I honestly don't know how anyone could watch this documentary and not be moved. There's a sequence in the film that shows religious protesters who believe when we die is the matter of God and God alone, but it's probably quite easy for them to say that when they're not the one dealing with crippling disease and pain. Hmmm. A-

Tomboy
Dir. Céline Sciamma
Running Time: 82mins

"Sweet" is the word that I - and I presume many others, too - keep coming back to when deciding what to write about this French childhood comedy, the first film by Céline Sciamma since Water Lilles in 2007. Tomboy follows a young girl, Laure, whose family has recently moved to a new area. She has a younger sister and her mother is pregnant. Laure, as played by the wonderful and touching Zoé Héran, does "the boy thing" - cuts her hair short, wears boys clothes, and actually passes for a boy in the presence of others.

The performances by Héran, Malonn Lévana as sister Jeanne and Sophie Cattani as their mother are uniformly excellent. Héran especially gives a beautiful performance and one that goes deeper than the rather shallow waters of the screenplay. It's one of the finest child actor performances of recent years. Unlike many other viewers though, I suspect sweetness is Tomboy's major thematic virtue. Does Sciamma's screenplay have much else to say on the matter of androgyny and even, though never explicitly discussed but certainly raised, homosexuality in young children? I'm not too sure. In fact, I happen to think that Tomboy works best as a look at sisterly bond than anything relating to a girl dressing up as a boy. B

MIFF TALES
Today was the first day of the festival where I didn't feel like I really wanted to just stay in bed and take flu-fighting drugs. I actually felt like perky today. Perhaps I've got the initial wind that most people had on the first day of the festival? That or I'll wake up tomorrow feeling like crap again and I'll wanna punch myself in the face for jinxing myself.

It's gotten to the stage of the festival where I truly, honestly, don't know what day it is or even what time it is. It's also gotten to the stage where I start to see and hear things. During yesterday's films I couldn't help but watch boring paedophile drama Michael and see Buster Bluth! Today, as I was watching The Third Man I routinely got the theme tune to Curb Your Enthusiasm in my brain! That zither music does weird things to the brain, I swear!

MIFF Blogathon: Day 5 (Pianos and Chess in Littlerock)

This blogathon is an initiative of MIFF for their 60th anniversary year. I am one of six bloggers given the mission of seeing 60 films in 17 days and writing, reporting, reviewing and wrangling my way through the tiredness and hunger to bring the festival experience to your computer.

The Piano in a Factory

Dir. Zhang Meng
Running Time: 105mins

China's answer to the American indie quirk genre, Zhang Meng's The Piano in a Factory [Gang de qin] is a surprisingly charming and goofy examination of a band of performers living amidst a dying industrial town as they go about building a piano for their leader's daughter. After divorce has left this troubadour, Wang Quin-yuan's Chen, with no money, the only way to buy the affections of his daughter over those of her materialistic mother, is to build a piano alongside his band mates in a disused factory. Wonderfully lensed by Shu Chou in a series of steely greys, the wintery landscapes of snow and mud are fabulously intertwined with the factories, pipes, tunnels, pillars and traffic sounds of this industrial wasteland.

We routinely hear of China being in an economic resources boom, so it's interesting to see this film's portrayal as less than so, with dank and decaying fashion. The director has thankfully used a light touch with the material and does a lot that stops it from descending into maudlin, depression territory, while skirting the twee, cloying tone that could come from using the Super Mario Bros theme music. The Piano in a Factory proves to be far less obvious and manufactured here than it would be in an American film of the same variety. Combined with utterly bizarre musical sequences, a fantastic lead performance by Qin Hai-lu make this film, despite being too long for sure, an endearing surprise. B+

Littlerock
Dir. Mike Ott
Running Time: 83mins

America through the eyes of two Asian tourists, Littlerock features an evocative sense of place mere minutes into its short running time, but a pair of strange lead performances dulls the experience. Atsuko Okatsuka stars as Atsuko, a young girl travelling through America with her brother. Stuck in Littlerock, California (not to be confused with the actual city of Little Rock, Arkansas), Atsuko finds herself enamoured with the small town Americana vibe (or perhaps just enamoured with anything that isn't a staunch Japanese upbringing) and chooses to stay on as her brother heads to San Fransisco. She makes friends with a curiously fey - yet staunchly heterosexual - drug pusher and wannabe model (Cory Zacharia as Cory), as well as Jordan (Brett L Tinnes), a cute boy who proves hipsters can be found anymore!

The camera of cinematographer Carl McLaughlin (also a co-writer) is the real star of Littlerock, as it latches on to the sights of America that so endear it to many travellers. Okatsuka's performance as Atsumo, unfortunately blank and empty as a tourist with no knowledge of the local language, is not one of the things that the camera appears in awe of. Occasionally piping up with flat narration in the form of letters written home to her father, Okatskuka never seizes upon any emotional reading of her face when given a close-up. She just sits there and she makes for a difficult entry into the story. The character of Cory is the opposite, as there is so much of him given to us that I actually wished they put him away. Why he was written as an obvious homosexual who's willing to pull Zoolander model faces and perform his runway walk at the drop of a hat is beyond me. Was Ott trying to say something about homosexuality in a small town? If he was, I think I missed it. C+

Bobby Fischer Against the World
Dir. Liz Garbus
Running Time: 90mins

Chess: It's not the most exciting sport, is it? Especially when your prime subject has a rule in his big matches that there be no filming allowed. So, what we have here with Liz Garbus' documentary Bobby Fischer Against the World is a movie about chess' greatest player and yet we never actually get to see the man play. Must be a joke, yeah? Unfortunately, no.

Bobby Fischer Against the World is what I called a "wikipedia film". It even goes so far as to divide its (thankfully brief) run time into separately themed chapters of easily digestible themes. Garbus' subject is an interesting one, that's for sure, but where is the punch, where is the excitement? Something to have enlivened this documentary would have been greatly appreciated. As it is it's a standard history lesson that doesn't dig all that deep. C

Michael
Dir. Markus Schleinzer
Running Time: 96mins

It's curious. The banality that I found numbing and dull in Michael is the exact virtue that many others (including fellow blogathon buddy Thomas Caldwell) found in the piece. Was debut director Markus Schleinzer's plan to show that not only are paedophiles evil, but they're also incredibly boring? Sadly, I suspect this was in fact the case, but Schleinzer has gone about the material with the vagueness of blanched brussel sprouts.

The daunting prospect of watching a film about a paedophile who keeps a child locked in the basement is blunted by Schleinzer's desire to do absolutely nothing with it. There isn't anything particularly shocking or daring going on here; we've heard far worse coming out of the mouths of actual dungeon abuse victims. All Michael has is a static camera that thinks its being observational about the world, but instead - from my perspective - came off as scared and uninterested.


To call the lead character of Michael, played by Buster Bluth lookalike Michael Fuith, detached would be an understatement for the festival. As he keeps young Wolfgang locked in his basement, Schleinzer follows his mundane life as he goes to work, goes skiing, tries to have sex with a woman and fails, goes to hospital due to a car accident... and it all plays out in bland, Haneke-lite long shots with ambiguous beginning and end times. There is some interesting work done to imply that this boy has been there for quite some time and that Michael has helf other boys before, but it really does come off as a case of the director letting the subject matter do the heavy lifting and expecting some sort of meaning to bounce out because of it. Michael is arthouse filmmaking at its most maddening. Except, I guess, there's nothing particularly "maddening" about Michael. It just exists. Like brussel sprouts. D

MIFF TALES
I expected walkouts at Michael due to the nature of the plot, but the film's wishy-washy presentation - almost afraid to do or say anything about paedophiles or their victims - gave the large Tuesday night crowd nothing to get particularly huffy about, although I heard bad projection issues meant an earlier screening of Uzo and Scorsese's The King of Comedy meant viewers were left wanting.

Today at Bobby Fischer I had the pleasure of finally meeting Rhett Bartlett of Dial M for Movies. As we sat waiting for the movie to begin a lady began speaking to us. She had recognised me as one of the bloggers and began to explain how she thought it was a conspiracy as to who was chosen to take part. Apparently we'd all been published already (there's a difference between being published and making money, but I couldn't be bothered going into the depressing details right then and there) and how she wanted to be a blogger. Humourously, upon noticing me pull out a notepad and pen she all but screamed "I don't want to be blogger anymore! I don't want to be blogger anymore!"

Apparently all this "writing" stuff was a bit much for her. When I asked if she had been reading or following us on Twitter she said had not and then went about giving herself, Rhett and I popcorn related nicknames. The people you meet... :/